Babybender
by vanillavinegar
Summary: Kya has her hands full. Oneshot.


**Title: **Babybender  
><strong>Author: <strong>vanillavinegar**  
>Rating: <strong>K  
><strong>Summary: <strong>Kya has her hands full.  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> _A__vatar: The Last Airbender _and all associated characters, settings, etc., belong to Mike DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko, and Nickelodeon. The only profit I make from this work of fiction is my own satisfaction and, possibly, the enjoyment of others.  
><strong>Author's Notes:<strong> This fic was written for challenge 2, "childhood memories", at the livejournal community atlaland, for which it won first place.

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><p>Kya sighed as she placed the last fish in the basket and exchanged a smile with Akna. The older woman squinted up at the sun and then back down at the basket. "Scaling is too hard on my eyes. I'd rather do the gutting any day."<p>

Kya wiped her hands against one another, watching scales tumble from her gloves in a glittering stream. "They're both pretty messy jobs." Akna grunted agreement as she hefted the full basket. "Are you sure you can get that by yourself?"

Akna waved her off. "I'm not that old, Kya. Go rescue Hakoda from those children of yours."

"It's more likely he's spoiling them than anything else," Kya dryly replied.

"All the more reason for you to go!" Akna laughed as she walked away, balancing the basket on her hip.

Kya shook her head as she cleaned the blade of her knife and sheathed it. It really would be more like Hakoda to have let the children run all over him today, but surely a few minutes for her to get the scales off her clothes wouldn't go amiss. She loved her children dearly, but she couldn't deny they were exhausting. Just five minutes to herself would be…

"Mom! Hey, Mom! Guess what Katara did!"

Kya sighed, rolling her eyes upward. She should've known she was tempting the fates.

"Mom!" Sokka slid to a stop in front of her and immediately tugged at the end of her dress. Katara, at three still a little wobbly in her thick boots, shuffled along in his wake, finally plopping into the snow at their feet and grinning up at Kya around the thumb in her mouth.

"Sokka, where is your father?" Kya ran a hand through her son's short hair. Hakoda had already promised him that he could put it up in a wolf-tail once he turned five, and he was over the moon about it.

"Mom, Katara did something weird!" Sokka exclaimed, ignoring her question. Katara continued to suck at her thumb placidly.

"What did she do?" Knowing Sokka's flair for histrionics, his sister had probably sneezed or something equally ordinary, but Kya also knew she wouldn't get a straight answer from him until he had said what he wanted.

"I don't know!" Sokka threw his arms wide significantly

"Then how do you know it was weird?" Kya asked patiently. She squatted down, brushing some snow from his shoulders. Had he been rolling down snowdrifts again? They had told him not to do that after the last time he'd rolled right into old man Siku and knocked him off his feet.

Sokka waved his arms again. "She did this, and then _bam! _Snow everywhere!"

She struggled not to laugh. "Darling, your sister can't make it snow."

"But she _did_, Mom!" He turned to his sister. "Come on, Katara, show Mom," he coaxed. Katara blinked wide, innocent eyes up at him.

"Uh-huh. Help your sister up and let's find your father." Kya stood, brushing the snow from her knees. She was going to give Hakoda such a talking-to about letting the children run off alone…

As their mother marched away, Sokka frowned down at his sister, still sitting in the snow. "You did that on purpose," he grumbled.

Katara pulled the thumb out of her mouth with a smack. She raised her hands over her head; the snow behind her lifted with her gesture.

"Katara!" Sokka wailed as she dropped her arms down forcefully, making the snow fall all over her brother for the fourth time that day. He shook himself off like a polar bear dog, grumbling all the while.

Katara merely stuck her thumb back in her mouth and giggled.

THE END


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